Breakfast at the Hotel Ecotur ****

We came, on this hot afternoon, to Ceahlau, and to the very fancy hotel nestled between the mountain and the lake which is wrapped around its foot. One wall of our room was window, filled with the view of the lake, and the hills rising on its far side, and we lay on the bed and read.

On Thursday morning, refreshed, we went downstairs in search of breakfast. There was no sign of life in the dining room, but we found a smaller side room, equally deserted but in which three places had been set for breakfast. The waitress appeared and asked if we wanted smoking or non-smoking, and when we chose non-smoking, ushered us back to the dining room, with its fabulous view of the lake.

- Would we like coffee or tea, she asked. Juice? And what else? We hesitated, and she brought us the massive menu from which we had ordered dinner the previous evening. Were we seriously supposed to choose breakfast from the same menu? It seemed we were, and we found and opted for omelettes.

When the waitress reappeared to take this order, she apologised: there was not, after all, any juice. Since the Romanian diet, as we met it, is generous with meet and starch, but sparing with vegetable matter, we were desperate for fruit and, returning to the menu, ordered fruit salads.

The coffee arrived: two cuos of strong black coffee (strong is good). And the waitress was sorry, but there were no eggs; would we like some cheese?

We said no, we'd just have toast. This turned out to be the same rolls as we had been served at dinner the previous evening. They had been pleasant enough then, but slightly stale: toasted, they were excellent. The fruit salad, on the other hand, in a village where there were windfall apples and plums everywhere underfoot, was tinned (and topped with a thick swirl of whipped cream).

After this sustaining breakfast, we set off to climb a mountain.